NikonWeb.com

An extremely rare monochrome DCS760 is now for sale on eBay, with a $9000 'Buy it now' price tag (bidding starts at $5000).

http://cgi.ebay.com/Kodak-DCS-760m-mono ... dZViewItem

(Auction ends Sep-07-05 21:16:30 PDT)

I'd really like to get one of these, but not at that price..

Jarle

Hi,

I think this is the one Pete Meyers had. I note that this seller is pointing to Pete's website as a reference in the auction text. Pete had this one up on eBay a couple months ago, and I don't know for sure it's the same, but have a sneaking suspicion that it is.

I had talked with Pete about buying it around a year ago, when he was coming to the conclusion that it really wasn't working for his style of shooting as well as film did. At the time, he wanted $8k for it, and that was also the price he had on it in his eBay auction.

I thought about it for a couple months (he wasn't in a hurry to sell at that point), and decided that I'd be better off with a used Canon 1Ds mk-I once the new mk-II's hit the street and using a photoshop plug-in to get my mono shots, as opposed to having a dedicated mono DSLR. As it was, I was able to get a 1Ds-I for half the price of Pete's 760m, so that's the way I went.

There's an article on MR's site where Pete chronicled his time with the 760m:

http://luminous-landscape.com/reviews/c ... 760m.shtml

It's interesting reading, although Pete was somewhat unhappy that Kodak couldn't get the thing to work quite the way he wanted it to.....

Stan

_________________
Amateur Photographer
Professional Electronics Development Engineer

Hi,

I found out that the seller is, indeed, Pete.

Now, who wants to pony up the dough for such a rare item?

Stan

_________________
Amateur Photographer
Professional Electronics Development Engineer

Hi Stan,

Like I said, it's too expensive for me. Why don't you get it yourself?

Jarle

This is a very unique camera, Would anyone object if I posted it on the other NHS site
Mess with the old timers.
Kiu

Unique and rare camera... yes.

Worth $9000... even to a collector... No. Even if you had a pressing need to take monochrome imagery... for 9000 you could buy a lot of film and pay someone to scan it.

Hi Nathan,

I completely agree that it's not worth $9000 to most people, but apparently Mr. Myers bought it because he was not satisfied scanning b/w film:

'Over the years my frustrations mounted with film because of the digital scanning issues with silver based negatives. I found that professional scanners were geared rather strictly towards their use with transparency material and not silver negatives. Even with pyro development of my silver negatives and push processing two or more stops for increased contrast, I still was not satisfied with the scanning issues and artifacts.'

I guess there are probably some photographers who would buy a camera like this, but they are few and far between (at this price level). As a collector I'd rather spend my $9000 elsewhere.

Jarle

It hardly comes as a surprise, but just for the record:

Auction ended without any bids.

Jarle

Considering the low price of the Canon 3ir with its 1.6MPixel CCD, I can't see how anyone can realistically get $9,000 for this camera. I suspect it would carry a 50% premium over a DCS760c, but not go for 9x the price.

I do not think that collecting old Digital cameras will ever have the stature of collecting classic Nikon RF's and other vintage "pro-grade" cameras.

If they do, I'm still keeping the E3. I like using it. And it works with the SB29. I use it to take pictures of the Vintage Cameras.

Page down to the 21st post for the E3 in action with the SB29.
http://rangefinderforum.com/forums/show ... post120152

Many of you have probably seen Pete Myers' 760m review before (on luminous-landscape.com), but if you haven't - or want to read it again - you can now do so right here on NikonWeb.com:

http://www.nikonweb.com/dcs760m/

Pete eventually sold his 760m and went back to film. Today he's once again transitioning from film to digital - this time with the Nikon D3X. You can follow his journey on http://www.reddogjournal.com

Jarle

Hi,

Thanks for posting the link, especially his D3X story. I haven't talked with him since the time I was so seriously considering his 760m.

As it turned out for me, I'm happy that I let the 760m go and went for a 760c and a Photoshop B&W plug-in. But, then, my B&W shooting has always been best catagorized as casual and the 760m was way more B&W horsepower than I'd ever need.

Still, if I were to trip across a 660m one day......

Later!

Stan

_________________
Amateur Photographer
Professional Electronics Development Engineer

On a tangent, there's something I have always wondered about these old monochrome models - given that they don't have a Bayer filter matrix, is the resolution noticeably higher than the colour models? I suspect that, if you used the three-shot exposure method with coloured filters, and compensated for the infra-red sensitivity, the end result would be a colour photograph with a higher per-pixel resolution than a typical six-megapixel colour imaging system. I would be similar to the Foveon sensors used in Sigma SLRs.

Pete Myers' article doesn't shed much light on this, and I have never seen a full-sized sample from one of the monochrome cameras. I would be interesting if someone with access to e.g. a monochrome DCS 420 could post a side-by-side comparison, or shoot the same subject with the same lens and then post the .TIF file somewhere.

Based on what I have read about Sigma's Foveon sensor, I suspect that the resolution from the Canon 1Ds mentioned above, when converted to black and white, would still be greater than that of the 760m, but it would be an interesting comparison.

Not everyone will agree, I'm sure, but here's some info from Pete Myers' first Red Dog Journal article:

"The pixel count of the modern Bayer matrix-based digital camera is a lie. What manufacturers state is not the truth in terms of the information content of a camera. A Bayer cell was meant to be a cluster of four sub-pixels, which form a matrix of gB, Rg at the site. While RAW image processors try to de-mosaic the Bayer cell to imply greater resolution from the results, the truth is that the holes in the "Swiss cheese" cannot be filled. A level of artifacts and loss of resolution remain when a Bayer matrix image is stretched to display more than its information content will support."

"In December of 2008, the Nikon D3X was announced. This is the first professional workhorse camera that has been available in small format size with a 24-mega pixel (24mp) Bayer matrix image sensor. Take 24 mp, divide by 4, and you get 6 mega pixels - magically the same number as my pure digital monochrome camera produced in monochrome. Six-mega pixels are what I would consider the true resolution of the D3X camera based on cells, not sub-pixels."

http://www.reddogjournal.com/PM-1.php

Jarle

Based on my hands-on experiences with Sigma DP-1 and SD-14 with "14 megapixel" Foveon chip (4,5 mpix x 3) I'd say that images are comparable resolution wise to 10 megapixel Bayer sensor cameras.

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D1X, DCS PRO SLR/n, DCS 760, DCS 420c & Canon Pro70

Hi,

I once had a DCS460m, which had the original monochrome 6 MP sensor in it, plus I had one of the Kodak color wheel options for it. My experience with that lash-up vs. a DCS460c with the bayer CFA was that the three images with the color wheel gave about a 50% increase in color resolution over the bayer CFA single image.

What was most important was that there was no color aliasing with the mono/wheel merged images, whereas the 460c was pretty badly color aliased most of the time. I can't say that there was any really noticeable increase in luminance resolution, which makes sense as the pixels are overlaid.

I did have some issues in keeping the whole mess from moving between shots at times, even with the large format tripod I have which was originally meant to hold up an 8x10 view camera. If anything moved, then the resultant merged image was a mess and a half.

I later wound up selling both cameras and the color wheel in favor of a DCS660c with it's improved sensor and addition of a swappable AA filter.

Note that my subject matter was artwork imprinted onto textiles, as much of it still is. The 460m with color wheel was a lot of effort to put into making images of screenprinted items, for sure! It was a case of the gear showing up and my just having to give it a try, more than anything else.

later!

Stan

_________________
Amateur Photographer
Professional Electronics Development Engineer